


Looper

by deathmallow



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, cereal killers, hint of garcy if you don't blink, post 2x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 02:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmallow/pseuds/deathmallow
Summary: Hanging on while trying to carry on is a delicate balance, as Flynn well knows and Jiya is learning.  Post 2x10.





	Looper

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own things, etc. Spoilers for 2x10 and all. And yeah, I couldn't resist my own nerdy pun for the title.

It felt like a weird visit by relatives at the holidays--drop in, make some awkward talk, say the obligatory “we really should do this again”, and disappear. The future versions of Wyatt and Lucy had dropped the info bomb, given them the necessary plans to modify the Lifeboat, talked with the team--Future Lucy seemed almost too eager to talk to Flynn--and then scurried off only a few hours later, talking about not doing more undue damage to the timeline. It was good for Jiya to have something to focus on, listening to the necessary modifications to be made alongside Connor. Programming, fabrication, engineering: anything but thinking about 1888. Anything but the urge to go trance now, _right now_ and see if she could access a vision with a new outcome for Rufus.

“Well, guess now we know what it’s like being on the other side of the ‘can’t tell you too much’ time traveler paradox,” Wyatt muttered as the Future Lifeboat vanished. Flynn rolled his eyes. Lucy stared at the empty space where the Future Lifeboat had been as if she still couldn’t quite reconcile it all. None of them had asked what was up in the future, or how far in it was, that the two of them looked like extras from The Walking Dead. None of them had asked where Jiya, Denise, Connor, or Flynn were either. It was clear those questions weren’t getting answered.

Denise looked at all of them, and Jiya could see the smooth and immediate shift from stunned silence to immediate action, like a key turning in a lock. “We’ll have to move. Immediately. I have another safe spot--I’d always figured we might need backup.” She blew out a slow breath. “It’ll do only as temporary quarters, though. I’ll have to find a Plan C for the longer term.”

“Wait, what?” Lucy asked.

“Jessica knows where this bunker is,” Flynn said gruffly. “Which means that Rittenhouse knows.” 

“Jessica’s not going to--”

“I’m sorry, but did you miss the part where your wife was _very willingly_ firing a pistol at us in that saloon?”

“Like you’re one to fucking talk, Flynn, I seem to remember Lucy and me barely getting Rufus back here alive a year ago with a bullet in him after _you_ set him up with Capone!”

“At least I never--”

A year ago--four years for her. The memory sparked the tinder of anger and agony both. She’d been so terrified to lose him then, gone on the mission to 1954 that gave her these damn visions. She’d been so scared to lose him, and then she’d lost him anyway.

Rufus had died less than twenty-four hours ago, and now they’d have to go on the run again, but she might get Rufus back, but she might not. Everything in flux and it was like quicksand underfoot, and she couldn’t stand it. She’d resigned herself to losing him and living out her life awaiting the joy of indoor plumbing to make it down to the Bison Horn. Then she’d let herself hope for a few minutes, fierce and fine, that it would all be OK. Then she’d started to resign herself to losing him like she’d known she would all along. And now the carrot dangled again and she couldn’t bear the whiplash of daring to hope yet again, let alone dealing with this on top of it. Three years for her and it was obviously yesterday for them, but the two of them butting heads like two stubborn rams with more balls than sense was too much right now. “ _Enough!_ ”

Maybe she hadn’t arrived in the Future Lifeboat, but she wasn’t the same Jiya Marri they’d known either. Three years of living on the rough side of town had done a lot. Three years ago they would have just ignored her and kept bickering. Whether it was an overbearing respect of her more-or-less widowhood--how Victorian of them--or something in her tone she’d learned for how to shut down too many men with more pride or liquor or rage than sense, it shut them up. Wyatt’s mouth slid shut, and he nodded. Flynn rubbed the back of his neck with his good arm, and he glanced away awkwardly. Lucy looked at both of them like she’d just as soon wring both their necks, and Connor eyed her with a strange sort of respect.

Denise stepped into the gap of silence. “Go pack your things, because I want to be out of here in a few hours,” she told them. “Jiya, let’s talk.” Dismissed by Bunker Mom, the four of them scurried.

Leaning against the stove, she nodded her way through the conversation. They were going to hide out in rural Pennsylvania. She tried to repress the thought that Rufus would have made some wisecrack about if they were all going to try to blend in like in _Witness_. What she wouldn’t have given to see him make stupid awkward jokes about attempting to pass as a black Amish man. “Why aren’t you telling everyone?”

“I need you to pilot the Lifeboat there,” Denise answered. “And I’m trusting only you with the GPS coordinates.” She sighed, “Wyatt is, well, compromised, and right now, for the others, the less they know, the better.”

She nodded. “Fine. Pennsylvania, though? What will you tell Michelle and your kids?”

“They’ve gotten used to me needing to go out on a mission now and again.” Denise looked at her, reached out, and brushed a lock of hair back from Jiya’s face. “Cagney,” she said fondly, her voice suddenly tender and soft in a way that made Jiya’s eyes sting and her throat go tight, a tone she hadn’t heard since her own mom. She wouldn’t cry again for Rufus. Not now, when there was work to be done. “I’ll do whatever I can to help bring him back to you.” 

Looking away so Denise wouldn’t see her eyes, she said roughly, “Let me go pack.”

It didn’t take long. Mostly she wondered whether or not to pack Rufus’ things and bring them with. But in the end, she couldn’t leave them, discarded like his body had been, the detritus of a life only to be seen by either Rittenhouse agents or maybe some weird people exploring abandoned places years in the future. But she couldn’t bear to linger over it either, so she swept it all into a box in a hurry, clothes and a couple of books and his Rubik’s cube and a grey wool Army issue blanket that still smelled of him. Three years and she’d almost forgotten that scent.

It was at the scent of that blanket that the choked noises started, and she realized that they were hers. Sitting down on the bed, she clenched the rough wool in her fingers, balled up fist pressed to her mouth to stifle any noise. They needed a pilot, they needed to run and hide, she needed to lock down and focus. They’d do their best to get him back. But leaving this place so suddenly, with the ghost of him so present she felt like if she looked up she’d see him standing there, felt like another goodbye she couldn’t handle just yet.

The sound of a quiet footstep had her looking up, but it wasn’t Rufus there. The looming figure of Garcia Flynn filled the doorway. She wanted to scream at him to go away, wanted to know if he was sorry he started this whole fight with Rittenhouse. No, no point in asking that last one. He’d pursued his war with the zeal of the true fanatic, a tidal wave not caring who he took out along the way. 

At least it wasn’t Wyatt. She wasn’t sure she could have withstood that. Lucy lost her sister and psycho mother, she’d lost Rufus, even Flynn had lost family. What had Wyatt lost? He got his wife back, had a kid on the way. And he’d blindly put them all in danger in the way that had let Jessica worm her way into all of this. Every bit as blind as Flynn, in his own way. He was the one who’d lost nothing, and if he’d been there and tried to apologize, she might have wanted to lash out and hurt him as much as she’d hurt her. 

But that didn’t mean the man in front of her got away unscathed just because Wyatt was foremost on the shit list right now. “What do you want, Flynn?” She nodded towards his arm in the sling. “Not much use for lifting heavy things right now, so are you here to apologize that you didn’t get the job done and left it to Rittenhouse?”

Also not fair. He’d been good as his word since Denise got him out and he’d kept Rufus alive, especially in 1919. She shouldn’t think like that. She should be better, more understanding, more forgiving, more able to give space for regret. Right now, she couldn’t make space for Wyatt or Flynn’s screwups and transgressions. Not when the pressure of it all in her chest was a heavy weight threatening to cave her in. 

He winced slightly at that, but didn’t come back with a smartass rejoinder. He inhaled deeply, spread his feet a little further apart, uninjured hand coming to rest behind his back in that same military rest pose that Wyatt tended to assume. “My apologies won’t bring him back, Jiya.” His eyes met hers. “So...Rufus will come back, or I won’t. I owe him that. I owe you that.”

That struck her into silence. Not _I’ll try_ or _I’ll do my best._ Denise’s promise was made softly, gently. Flynn’s was stern and inflexible as steel: he’d bring Rufus back or die in the attempt. Unlike Jessica, she didn’t doubt his sincerity. He may have been an asshole, he may have tried to kill them, but Flynn hadn’t lied to them that she could tell. She nodded at that, accepting that vow, fingers clutching the grey blanket tighter.

His gaze went to her hand and the blanket. Something softened in his expression, green eyes flickering with a strange recognition. “Bring what you can of his,” he said, his voice suddenly rough. “Especially pictures, and keep something with you, something small you can carry on you. It may be too much now, but you’ll want it later.” With that he turned and left.

They made the jump to Pennsylvania, and with the lifeboat stashed in a barn, and settling down in a small farmhouse near Gettysburg, life began with making the plan and the upgrades. "This will need patience," Connor said, watching her as he said it. "We’ll only get one good shot at this."

She could be patient. She’d resigned herself to living her days out a hundred years before she was even born. A few months to get it right seemed like nothing in comparison, and in the meantime, there was the mission, and that kept her mind busy in a way that she sorely needed.

She came downstairs early three weeks in, the first rays of sunlight still coming through the window in a weak, pale stream. Saturday morning, so she'd be out in the barn working on the Lifeboat as soon as she ate some breakfast. She wasn’t used yet to having the sheer ease of a twenty-first century kitchen again. Opening the fridge and pulling out a Coke, microwaving popcorn, things like that. She found Flynn there, casually reaching onto the top shelf of the pantry and pulling down a box of cereal from behind the Corn Flakes. She had to hate him a little for how easily he reached up there, given the rest of them had to grab a stepstool.

“Seriously, Flynn,” she told him, “you don’t have to stash the Froot Loops from us like it’ll somehow make you less able to punch people.”

“I’m not hiding them because of that,” he answered her with a smirk. “I’m hiding them so Wyatt won’t eat them, because he kept stealing them in the bunker.”

“OK, petty,” she muttered, unable to resist rolling her eyes. “So can I have some and join the Cereal Killers club?”

“Mm, you’re capable of better jokes than that.”

She had to admit she enjoyed realizing Flynn didn’t scare the hell out of her as he had before. After everything she’d been through, alone, in an era before antibiotics and cars, she wasn’t going to be intimidated even by a six foot four secret agent, especially with a love for sugary cereal. “Cut me some slack. The 1880s were really lacking both Froot Loops and nerdy pun-based humor.”

He gave a low chuff of laughter, and gestured towards the table. Right arm still definitely stiff, she noticed. She grabbed another bowl from the cupboard, and a spoon from the drawer. Shoving the drawer shut, because it had a tendency to stick, she turned back to the table.

The first bite tasted like sugar-laden, diabetic-courting heaven. “It wasn’t Wyatt who took them back in the bunker, you know,” she told him. Crunching his way through a mouthful of cereal, he gave that raised eyebrow _Really?_ expression of acknowledgment. “It was Rufus.” _It’s Bunker Christmas, Jiya: Agent Christopher got us Froot Loops!_ “Any junk food possible, really.” 

That flicker of something was back in Flynn’s expression. “They were my daughter’s favorite,” he said quietly. “We...Lorena, Iris, and I all used to watch cartoons together on Saturday morning, when I was home.”

Jiya glanced towards the living room, seeing the TV on and ready for someone to sit on the couch, and the other shoe dropped. For a moment, she felt guilty at interrupting his ritual. On the other hand, he was the other person in this place who’d been through something like this. Asking Flynn for advice felt weird, but given the other option was going crazy, or maybe just locking herself in her room and trancing to try to find Rufus until she never came back, maybe advice from the Croatian murder machine was preferable. It felt too bold, but on the other hand, maybe just right. Maybe only holding the golden ticket of being a fellow member of that terrible “my lover was murdered in front of me by a shadowy evil cult and I’m on the run now” club entitled someone to ask that bluntly. _How do you keep going, I mean, aside from just totally murdering your way through time to try to get them back?_ She thought of the Chewbacca keychain kept safe in her pocket, remembering what he’d told her back in the bunker. “So that whole ‘take this, you’ll need it out there’ with Rufus’ stuff you were telling me, you’ve done that?” 

The Link reference went right over his head, of course. His shoulders shook with bleak laughter, fingers tapping against his cereal bowl for a second as if itching to pull a trigger. “Rittenhouse sent an assassination squad at least a half-dozen strong. I barely got out of our house that night with a t-shirt, pajama pants, and a Glock down two bullets. Nothing else. I haven’t been back since.” _Haven’t stopped running since,_ Jiya silently filled in. 

Now something settled on the still-open wound, like prodding it with a finger to see if it was still raw. It was, and yet she prodded further. “You left them. Had to leave them. Their bodies.” Connor had sympathized, comforted, hugged, but he couldn’t know the searing guilt of it. She’d had visions--not trances, but nightmares--of Rufus dumped in some unmarked pauper’s grave. She knew exactly where that would have been too. A few of the Bison Horn’s patrons had ended up there during her tenure. She’d had wild visions of demanding they go dig it up, find a forensic anthropologist if needed, identify Rufus. Not too many black men in that area of San Francisco at the time, especially not with modern dental fillings. She could at least bury him properly. 

His gaze flicked up to hers. “Yes. God, Allah, whoever, he knows we did what we had to do. Rufus knows it. They’re all beyond worry about what we did with their remains, Jiya. I visited my girls’ graves once, because I wouldn’t--couldn’t risk more. And it doesn’t matter, because you carry them with you. Mourning isn’t a gravestone. It’s here,” he tapped his temple with the first two fingers of his hand, then his sternum, “and here.” He gave an awkward half-smile, but it was sad rather than his usual smirk. “Because so long as you’re still breathing, something of them lives. And that’s a damn hard thing when it’s not over and you can hope to bring them back.”

She shoved another mouthful of cereal in so she didn’t have to answer immediately, though it tasted of nothing in that moment. He’d put his finger on it. How to grieve Rufus when she was determined to get him back and couldn’t give up hope but he was dead, and it was all one confused spiral. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he still thought he’d bring his wife and daughter back, but she hesitated. That was too much. 

The two of them sat in silence, eating and thinking their own thoughts of loved ones lost. Finishing her cereal, she grabbed Flynn’s empty bowl too, stacking it on hers. Eating Froot Loops and watching cartoons in his own private ritual of remembrance--it didn’t matter whether it was hope or memory, did it? All that mattered was that it was a comfort, bittersweet as it might be, an echo of fierce love and the people who had inspired it rather than dwelling on a bloody end. Maybe she could start to face Rufus’ things out in the barn and turn them at least somewhat into strength rather than just another thing to make her buckle at the knees. _I’ll get you back if I can,_ she vowed silently. _But I know you won’t want me dead or anyone else to make it happen. I’ll try, I’ll give it everything I’ve got, but I won’t die. I know you wouldn’t want me to die, easy as that might be. If we fail, I’ll live with it. The guilt, the grief._ Still five years younger than Rufus, even with the three lost years, she felt much older than that right then. She’d made that decision already in 1885 that she wouldn’t be a sacrifice for him, and sweet, beautiful, foolish Rufus had charged in anyway. They’d go in ready, take their one shot at it fully prepared, and either she’d win and bring him back, or she’d have to find a way to let him go. No more thoughtless heroics. No more vows to lay down lives.

 _What, no hug? I’m practically family now._ She could tell Flynn wasn’t comfortable with hugs and the like, from how he always hung back, actually avoided physical contact. And maybe she wasn’t that younger, softer Jiya who could so easily give hugs. She’d killed too, she’d survived and become something else in those years in Chinatown. 

_Yeah, the creepy uncle._ She choked back laughter and tears both at remembering Rufus’ face as he said it. _Nobody had jokes like yours, Ruf._ She put her hand on Flynn’s left shoulder. He tensed beneath her hand like he’d been shot again, head turning to look up at her with an expression of wary surprise. 

“I’m guessing from how much you’ve fought Rittenhouse that it’s not that you still want to die,” because of course he had, because of course she had, “but if so, find some other way. Give it everything you’ve got because we’ll need you, but don’t get killed on Rufus’ account. He wouldn’t want it. And I don’t want it.” 

He licked his lips and nodded at that. Carefully reached up and pressed her hand with his for just a moment, acknowledging the blessing of sorts, and she let go.

That afternoon, after coming back from the barn for lunch, she put Chocodiles and the Star Wars collection on Denise's shopping list.


End file.
